Stinger VIP vs. AntiLaser Priority: Laser Head Size Comparison

So I received a Stinger VIP again today for testing purposes. I’ve been curious just how small the heads are compared to the AntiLaser Priority’s heads and since I’ve played around with the radar bit before, I spent the past few hours comparing the head sizes with my ALP and shooting some photos and I wanted to share the photos here with you guys. Let’s take a look…

Here’s how the laser jammers look. First up is the normal receiver.
Long box on one end and a Mini USB port on the other.

Here’s a look at the fiber head. I always figured it was basically just a long skinny wire, but you can see the tube where the laser jammer is, like the normal head, and then an extension out to the fiber head.

Now I gotta admit that I wasn’t too impressed initially.. at least not until I went out to my car, started playing around, compared it to my ALP’s, and started realizing what the smaller heads meant. Looking at them in the box, it’s just some wiring and boxes.. and I guess they’re small. Cool.

Let’s take a look at the head sizes next to the ALP.
The ALP head is much wider. The Stinger heads are clearly smaller. The wires are thinner too. The ALP is shorter front-to-back which is preferable for rear installs when you’re installing under your trunk lid. If that area is short, the Stinger heads may stick out further beyond your trunk. Otherwise the Stinger heads are definitely not nearly as wide. It’s like a similar idea, just reoriented. ALP is wide, Stinger is long. Let’s take a look at the face of the heads.
The square heads are very tiny. The ALP heads are definitely much wider. Now to be fair, one ALP head covers both the transmitter and the receiver. The Stinger heads are transmitter or receiver only.. so the heads are smaller but you’ll need twice as many of them.. so it’s a trade-off.

The square shaped head is the receiver. The standard transmitter has the same shape but the face is a little different. Below you’ll see the standard transmitter (left) and receiver (right).

You also have the ability to upgrade your transmitter head to a super tiny fiber head. Here’s a look at all the different head sizes, including the fiber head.
That fiber head is really tiny. It’s only 2.6mm across which makes it super easy to hide on your vehicle. I was expecting that, but I wasn’t expecting how small the standard heads would be. They’re basically the same height as the ALP head, just barely a smidge taller. (16mm vs. 14mm)
Here’s a similar shot, adding in the fiber head for comparison.
Now I shot those photos with my rear ALP heads since they’re sitting in a bracket on either side of my rear plate and they’re easy to pop out for pics. When I went around to the front of my car, I found out some more really cool things.

For my front ALP heads, I had a professional cut into my car. He had to pull off the bumper and dremel the holes in the grill. It turns out that with the Stinger heads, I could actually install them in my grill without drilling! Holy cow… Granted I had to mount them down lower, but it’s still feasible. That’s way cool… I was very happy to see they slid right into place nicely.
I think these smaller heads will open up a lot of possibilities for installation with being able to install in grills that the ALP’s are too big for. (That’s why I went for HP-905’s over LI’s in my last car.)

For people who don’t want to cut their grills, the Stingers are a better option. That’ll make for a potentially cheaper install and a quicker install too so even though the Stinger heads may be more expensive (or less, depending on the configuration), you can put that money into the heads rather than the install which I’d prefer. Now you will have twice as many heads which may negate the time and money saved in not cutting, but you still have a much better shot at avoiding having to cut your grill which is awesome.

That also helps when it comes time to sell your car and so you don’t have to buy a new grill. You could sell your car as is with holes in it. Hopefully the salesperson/buyer wouldn’t notice, but either way, it’d be nice to just avoid that altogether. (I’m a fan of not cutting the grill if possible.)

I also really like that the Stinger heads look much more like parking sensors compared to my ALP heads.

Here’s another shot where I installed the laser fiber as well. See if you can find it. 🙂 (Hint: It’s down lower than the receiving head.)

If we zoom out further, you can see how the heads look compared to my ALP’s. I’ve got 2 ALP heads and 4 Stinger VIP heads (2 TX fibers, 2 RX square heads).
Now this isn’t necessarily the “best” locations for installing your heads. I actually had no idea where to install these heads since it’s a totally different idea than with your standard integrated heads we’ve had with Blinder/LI/ALP so I asked Cliff and here’s what he suggested.
So with the tinier heads, we can get them closer to the targets which is awesome. The upper red receivers would still require cutting in the grill, but at least they’d be much smaller holes. The bottom heads wouldn’t require any cutting. Woohoo! That’s also pretty wild about putting the transmitters down in the corners of the headlights like that. That’s an option we didn’t have before… so we’ve got new possibilities with these smaller heads.

The way you wire the Stinger heads up is pretty cool too. If you wanted to do an ALP triple up front, you’d have to run 3 wires back through your firewall. With the Stinger, all your laser jammers (up to 4 Tx, 4 Rx) plug into this laser analyzer box (LAB) which stays in your engine bay somewhere and then you run just one cable back through your firewall, into your cabin. That makes installation and uninstallation much much easier. Plus you’ll need smaller holes in your firewall which is easier to do.

So yeah, I’m pretty impressed with these tiny heads, more than I thought I would be. I knew they were small, but I figured you’d have to upgrade to the fibers to get the smallest heads. However, even with the normal heads, they’re already pretty small which means you’ve got more options as far as placement, especially if you’re wanting to avoid grill cutting. (I just did the ALP setup guide so placement stuff is fresh on my mind.)

I hope Stinger gets everything fully sorted out on the software side too because the ALP’s definitely are more solid currently in terms of performance, but focusing strictly on the head sizes, these smaller heads are really slick… I’m a fan.